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Coolink Silentator Heatpipe Cooler

Installation:

Now it’s time to prepare the Silentator itself. You’ll need another four screws and the flat mounting plates this time. Place the flat mounting plate on the top of the copper base and push a screw through the hole and gently turn it into the plate. Then use a screw driver to fully secure the plate into place. Do this for the other side too and you will end up with something that looks like the photos below.

Using the thermal paste/pad of your choice, apply sparingly to your IHS on the processor, rather than the base of the Silentator (unless your paste advises you apply to both surfaces). Why? Because the copper base of the Silentator has a larger surface area than the processor IHS and would result in wasted thermal compound. I chose to use Arctic Silver Ceramique, due to its non-conductive properties. That translates to “I am clumsy and might spill some on my motherboard”, so Arctic Silver 5 is not suitable for me. Once you have applied the compound, place the Silentator on to the processor and align the two sets of mounting plates so that they line up as shown below. You should be able to see through both holes easily with no overlap.

This next part is also a shade fiddly, but I will explain a sensible method of approach. Slide one of the pressure springs over one of the two spring screws (the longer screw with a long smooth shaft and some thread on the end) and then push this between the two aligned plates. Here’s where the trick is. The spring is quite resistant (you’d expect that really), so you need to push quite hard to get the thread to bite into the bottom plate. Once it does bite, make a half turn with the screwdriver, possibly only a quarter if you can manage it. This ensures that when applying the second screw to the other side that you don’t need to force the heatsink too much. Once both screws are biting into the lower plate, tighten each screw a couple of turns in an alternating pattern. Keep doing so until the screws turn no more. This might require a bit of strength, but it really pulls the heatsink very close the processor to ensure excellent contact. Your pins will look something like the photo below.

Now that the Silentator is mounted to the motherboard, it’s time to assemble the fan controller. Firstly, unscrew the hexagon nut and remove the washer from the controller.

Push the controller through the PCI bracket, so that the small notch pushes through the small hole on the bracket.

Now place the washer over the dial and then screw the nut back on over the top. You only need to screw the nut on by hand – no need to use a spanner/wrench.

Finally, place the shiny silver knob on top of the dial. My advice is to turn the dial all the way to ‘L’ or ‘Low’ and then place the knob on so that the notch on the knob is aligned with the ‘Low’ setting. This will probably make more sense if you have done this before!

Now you’ll need to connect the Silentator fan to the fan controller as shown below. The other 3-pin connector plugs right into your motherboard. If you prefer, you can also plug the Silentator fan into the 3-pin to Molex adaptor.

At this point, I’d advise you perform some wire management, as shown below. You may regret it later if not!

Here’s when I got a little irate. I went to slide my motherboard back into the case, to find that the Silentator abused the clearance of the PC-60 frame by about 5-10mm, meaning that I couldn’t slide the thing in with the Silentator mounted to the motherboard. Cue a tirade of expletives. This meant that I had to remove the motherboard from the ingenious tray and slide it in bare and then mount the motherboard to the tray. I was mostly annoyed at the fact it negated the whole point of having a motherboard tray, but not at the fault of Lian Li or Coolink – I just guess heatsinks are getting bigger and that the PC-60 isn’t that ‘big’ these days. So after guiding the motherboard into the case and managing my wires (again), I ended up with the photo below. Do make sure to reconnect everything properly before turning the system on!